simplest process of boiling is resorted to; and where fuel is
abundant, and especially coal, the preparation of this prime
necessary is still cheap and easy; and from six to ten cents the real
bushel may be considered as the ordinary cost of production. Such is
the bountiful and cheap supply of this article, which a beneficent
Providence has provided for us. The Supreme Ruler of the Universe
has done every thing to supply his creatures with it. Man, the
fleeting shadow of an instant, invested with his little brief authority,
has done much to deprive them of it. In all ages of the world, and in
all countries, salt has been a subject, at different periods, of heavy
taxation, and sometimes of individual or of government monopoly;
and precisely, because being an article that no man could do
without, the government was sure of its tax, and the monopolizer of
his price. Almost all nations, in some period of their history, have
suffered the separate or double infliction of a tax, and a monopoly
on its salt; and, at some period, all have freed themselves, from one
or both. At present, there remain but two countries which suffer
both evils, our America, and the British East Indies. All others have
got rid of the monopoly; many have got rid of the tax. Among
others, the very country from which we copied it, and the one above
all others least able to do without the product of the tax. England,
though loaded with debt, and taxed in every thing, is now free from
the salt tax. Since 1822, it has been totally suppressed; and this
necessary of life is now as free there as air and water. She even has
a statute to guard its price, and common law to prevent its
monopoly.
This act was passed in 1807. The common law of England
punishes all monopolizers, forestallers, and regraters. The
Parliament, in 1807, took cognizance of a reported combination to
raise the price of salt, and examined the manufacturers on oath: and
rebuked them.
Mr. B. said that a salt tax was not only politically, but morally
wrong: it was a species of impiety. Salt stood alone amidst the
productions of nature, without a rival or substitute, and the
preserver and purifier of all things. Most nations had regarded it as a